Why easy rider Prue has fellow villagers alarmed!
IT’S the Great British Bike Off, as Prue Leith takes it easy on her £40,000 Harley-Davidson trike that has caused a stir in the Cotswolds.
The 84-year-old leathers-clad TV baking judge says she loves whizzing around Gloucestershire villages with husband John Playfair at the controls.
Cheekily, he has found the exact revs at which the Tri Glide’s 1800cc engine can set off nearby car alarms.
Rolling her eyes, Prue admits: “He thinks it’s hilarious and everybody panics. John is well known in the area. He’s very gregarious. Everybody knows him – and that he’s quite childish sometimes.
“When I first rode on the back of it I was really indignant because I said, ‘You know, this is noise pollution.
Love
“‘This is unfair.You can’t go driving through villages disturbing people with this horrible thing.’” But John, 77, insists villagers “love” the sound.
Prue concedes: “They do. There is something about a Harley that people just love the sound of it.
“It’s safe to sit on because you can’t turn over, so you don’t have to wear a hat. It’s like a Reliant Robin tricycle, and we go whizzing around the country. It’s got a lovely leather seat.
“It’s so lovely and comfortable, you can smell the newly mown grass as you go.We pub crawl: I do the drinking, and he does the driving.”
Prue, mum to Tory MP Daniel Kruger and adopted daughter Li-Da, previously noted that John’s children call the trike his “mobility scooter”.
She married the fashion designer in 2016 and they live with two Cavalier Spaniels in a barn conversion in Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos, after Prue downsized from her £10million manor house Chastleton Glebe.
She hosted ITV series Cotswold Kitchen from their home but is not a big fan of the household’s chores.
She says: “I got into terrific trouble a little while ago because I said I hadn’t made a bed in 50 years.
“But I do wash up – we have a couple of dishwashers. I love cooking and gardening, but as now I’m such an ancient old lady I don’t really like kneeling and bending over.
“John does the heavy work and I do the pretend gardening, like Marie Antoinette. I plant troughs.”
Prue was chatting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show as an ambassador for the Freedom from Torture charity, and baked bread using wood in the Sanctuary for Survivors garden. She gave a recipe to the charity’s new fundraising book.
She is currently filming the Great American Baking Show with fellow GBBO judge Paul Hollywood – but far from being set in a Hollywood location, the latest season is shot in Pinewood Studios at Iver Heath, Bucks.
Prue explains that make-up artists and hairstylists would cost more in the US, adding: “It’s cheaper for them to come to us.”